Message from the Headmistress

Good evening everyone from Headmistress Silva!

First off, I want to welcome back all the members who are returning from their breaks from the game! We’re happy to have you all back in time for patch 5.2. and please feel free to ask for help if you need to catch up in of the current content.

I also want to say thank you for being patient while the change in leadership was taking place and the current faculty was getting things figured out for the upcoming patch! I’m happy to announce that we have the schedule for 5.2 figured out and are adding two current members to the faculty staff as they have volunteered to pick up one of our Clubs: Ricola and Mika Telsa! They will be picking up and running Normal/Alliance Raids (which ever one is currently appropriate for said Patch).

Starting on February 18th, the new Club Schedule will be in effect and the FC Calendar have been updated to reflect the new updates. Here is what we will be offering at the start of 5.2.

Tusedays: EX Primal Club with Mana Akagane as Leader from 8pm CST – 10pm CST
Wednesdays: Normal/Alliance Raids with Ricola and Mika Tesla as Leaders from 8pm CST – 10pm CST
Thursdays: Treasure Maps with Silva Cataracta as Leader from 8pm CST – 10pm CST

I would like to note that we may add another Club or two soon, but I will make another announcement for those if they get added! I also didn’t add any Clubs to run during the weekend, so if you missed out on something during the week to please feel free to get a group together via the Discord or FC chat to run content!

If anyone has any questions, please ask away in the #questions_and_requests channel of the Discord and someone will get to you as soon as they can! We hope that you are looking forward to the revamped Club Schedule and everything that Patch 5.2 has to offer!

Paradise Found: Nymian Royal Academy Varsity Raiders Take on Eden

This is Headmistress Kela on behalf of the Royal Academy, greetings!

Firstly, it is my greatest pleasure to announce the successful launch of an unprecedented and ambitious effort. The Nymian Royal Academy is fronting twin Varsity Raiding Static Teams. Both will be working in parallel and sometimes in concert to challenge the new Savage raids released as of patch 5.05 in Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers – Eden’s Gate.

The teams were selected via search heuristic script, which optimized two teams based on schedule availability overlap and job composition. The roster is as follows:

Team Cloak

Sukutak Amasawa DRK
Mana Akagane GNB
F’yo Tia WHM
Seavie Wonder AST
Ponyo Amasawa DRG
Kekechuri Hohochuri MNK
Maximillion Lionheart BRD
Ghen Nebul SMN
Team Dagger

Nadezhda Krjs DRK
Ricola Tesla GNB
C’rhys Tia WHM
Kekela Kela SCH
Kaido Asakura SAM
Unther Nadjasch MNK
Mika Tesla DNC
Validus Sol RDM

All sixteen raiders of Nymian Royal Academy: Cloak+ Dagger can be seen here in Eden’s Core, getting ready to launch the 5.0 raiding season on their first joint raiding day Thursday August 1st:

In addition to the exciting news that we have a whole company of endgame raiders, we are thrilled to announce that both groups achieved week 1 clears of Eden’s Gate: Resurrection (Savage). Here is a gallery of related images:

An honorable mention to Solidus Obscura and Nico Rin who have progessed Eden independently of the Free Company and achieved clears with other groups this week.

Congratulations to our raiders and please stay tuned: these raiders will be teaching E1s to our breakout raiding population during Junior Varsity Raid this Monday.

Here follow logs:
Cloak Clear
Dagger Clear
All FC Rankings

Down to business: Free Company Schedule for Shadowbringers

Hello there Stabbies!

Firstly, WELCOME to all our new members. Many saw my comments on thread in the FFXIV: Brynhildr Facebook Group, and others found my very surprisingly popular and highly upvoted recruitment on Reddit. However you found us, we are so grateful you chose us. You have a lot of options on Brynhildr and many of them very good. It’s a special privilege to be given your trust, we will do our best to honor the faith you have in us in Shadowbringers.

While I have your attention let me briefly advise those players totally new to the game to not rush through the content in order to access Shadowbringers endgame. There are hours of main story to unlock and 70 levels between the start of A Realm Reborn and Shadowbringers. Rushing through it will induce burnout and make you dislike the game. Take the content at a healthy pace and enjoy it for what it is, and when you get to endgame the Free Company will help you catch up to be raid-ready in 5.2 when the next raid cycle begins. In the meantime, any time you need a roulette or a dungeon to progress the story, please mention it in /fc chat and people will hop in to get you into the content and around the queue right away, which will make chewing through that content much easier. We can’t help if we don’t know you need it though, so please don’t hesitate to speak up: you are not a burden, we LOVE to help new players!

Now, since we have many new people I have decided to put the schedule in a permanent place where anyone can see it, reference it, or link to it.

Starting Friday June 28th all normal events, activities, clubs and team meetings are hereby suspended until 5.05 (July 30th). The rationale behind this is we want people to experience the main scenario, much of which is single-player content, without feeling pressure to break away from something they’re enjoying to do something else with the Free Company.

There will be a very quick all-FC photo opportunity on 6/28 and 7/2 at 8:30pm Central Time. It’s optional if you’re enjoying what you’re doing no need to come, but we will have record numbers of players on early access and launch day so it’ll be a good opportunity to get as many people as possible for a promotional picture. If possible, wear an academic-looking outfit in Marsh Green, or the uniform. If neither are possible, please come regardless of what you’re wearing!

From the period of June 28th to July 16th, we will have no official meetings, however we will be constantly, all-day organizing events in /fc chat, roulettes, virgin runs of new dungeons/msq instances and trials, farms for exp, gear, etc. In the evenings we will have learning/teaching runs of Titania Extreme and Innocence Extreme running. They will be advertised in the discord but they will not be scheduled in advance as such things largely depend on how long it takes people to access that content.

On the evening of Tuesday, July 16th we will have a three-hour meeting starting at 8pm Central time that will be blind + cutscene runs of the Eden raid, story mode. We will prolly take multiple groups. This will require players to be level 80 and finished with the 5.0 Main Scenario, so if you plan to come to this please progress through 5.0 with that timeline in mind. Please have the first instance of the raid in your Duty Finder in advance of the meeting time. In addition, it is important for those raiding Savage to clear this raid before 7/23 or you will be locked out of a weeks worth of rewards and potential ilvl gains.

The week of 7/23-7/30 we will be hosting the first ever All-Crystal Raiding Symposium: more details of that particular week’s schedule to follow, but it will include a short lecture series and teaching parties for Titania Ex and Innocence Ex – again, you must be level 80 to participate in the teaching content.

The launch of the Savage Raid is Tuesday, July 30th. At that time the weekly recurring schedule will resume. We will have two Varsity savage raids raiding each two nights, and between them we will have 1) extreme primal mount farms 2) maps 3) story mode raid farm 4) FATEs for exp and local area rewards 5) PvP for Garo + exp 6) Junior-Varsity teaching raid and potentially even more offerings. The schedule for that date is still being worked out but it will feature these events, so please look forward to that.

If you have any questions, you can comment here, or in the #news_and_events channel of the discord. We hope you are looking forward to our Stormblood offerings as much as we are!

Headmistress Kela

Sing a song of Stormblood: Best Memories

Headmistress Kela here with a survey of highlights from everyone’s accomplishments from the last expansion.

Kaido Nihil
Fighting Susano and hearing these magical words: WILD PURE AND FOREVER FREE

Jamukha Oronir
the wild and pure and forever free one was good, but alternatively, the worm’s tail

They’re not the only ones who enjoyed fighting Susano. C’rhys Tia talks about helping H’unter Tia with his first kill back at the every beginning of the expansion. Warning: LONG (but so good)!

The setting is early Stormblood; the only class I had leveled was WAR, and Hunter was a fresh-faced BLM. I’d been farming the fight for twenty or thirty clears, as it’s actually really fun for tanks, and Hunter had been struggling through the frustration of #puglyfe chasing a clear due to the fight’s tendency to failscade if the healers don’t remember that they have to heal through the Ukehis later in the fight or people will die, especially if purple markers weren’t dropped on the correct side of the arena.

So, we set up a PF clear-for-one trap party, as one does. Everything was going fairly smoothly up through the first half of the fight, until the inevitable sloppeh began to rear its head; someone stood in the middle while they were frozen and sadly sank to their death. People didn’t MAKE WAY and dropped to thunderbolts from being on the wrong side. The merry dance transitioned to more of a frenzied limp, and as the boss’ HP dwindled, it began to look as though the Lord of Revel would be the only one rejoicing; a stray Thunderbolt was forgotten, and the end seemed nigh as the party (sans tanks) were wiped out by an Ukehi barrage with a scant 2% of the boss’ health remaining.

However, hope was not lost; my valiant DRK co-tank furiously popped cooldowns, Gritting through another percent of the boss’ health, auto-attacks whittling him down; at a scant few thousand health, I Provoke and Onslaught to solidify hate, hoping to keep him alive a bit longer; sadly, the fight script had other plans, as the next mechanic was Susano’s stone jail that I had no hope of breaking, trapping the Dark Knight in what must have been pure Salted Earth.

Party chat is veritably screaming at this point; I’m at half health, with a single percent the last wall standing before the glorious [Duty Complete] tag. I switch to Defiance, Inner Release comes off cooldown, and I Inner Beast spam my berserking little heart out to heal up, layering on every cooldown I had left; the gauge spent, I switch back to Deliverance, hoping to eke out just a little more damage. The autos are inexorable, and my health ticks down. 20k. 14k. 8k. Susano readies a Stormsplitter as his health ticks down to a single pixel.

I Holmgang, blessing the absurdity that is the Warrior cooldown suite. 1 HP. Two seconds left on Holmgang. An auto attack goes out. My gauge ticks up to fifty. Fell. Cleave.

And the Lord of the Revel falls.

Chat explodes. My hands are shaking. And for a brief moment, I feel like a hero. Not just for keeping calm under pressure, but for having helped a friend through their frustration; and that, really, is what keeps me playing this game–the sense of community. Of camaraderie. Chasing that feeling of wonder, of overcoming trials and tribulations through teamwork and cooperation.

Wow! I always get so hyped reading that story. Here’s a sweet one:

Ricola Tesla
Bringing me in to not only the fc but the raiding static when I started as a substitute with no prior experience which helped me grow as a tank, clearing my first ever raid tier, and most importantly it got me the chance to meet my yin to my yang wifey sweetheart. Hehe

Ricola and his better half Mika met and connected after both joined the free company at different times. Their love spans continents: Rico’s an American and Mika lives in the beautiful Philippines. Their real-life wedding is scheduled for next summer! I better get an invitation!

Some of my memories are bittersweet: the Data Center split tore the FC down the middle and we lost a handful of great players who chose to stay with their raid on primal. Totally understandable but we still miss them so much. Here’s Rynthe Corthan‘s memory:

Making Top 10, Top 5, and Top 3 for Deltascape, Sigmascape, and Alphascape for Samurai dps respectively before echo was added, and being apart of this FC of course❤️
(seriously I miss this FC a lot lmao)

We miss you too, Rynthe! I doubt there’s anyone on Primal who can quite replicate our organized chaos. Here are our Crafters – they work so hard and quietly, but they have a great time playing this game alongside the rest of us (casuals)!

Silva Cataracta
being able to clear all of the EX primals before being able to unsync them in the next expansion and being able to clear Sigmascape 1S and 2S when it was current! Also being recognized and appreciated for my omni-crafting skills and being able to put together a group of crafters to help out with the Workshop

Bjrn Borg
Finding something I could really get into for the FC despite my unusual schedule. Being able to finally breathe a sigh of relief/exasperation/frustration all in the same sitting when finally unlocking the last Sector of the Airships after months of trying. The feeling of Pride and joy for helping unlock everything there was/is to unlock in the workshop. Being able to surprise people with random gifts along the way because we could craft it. Being HERE and NOW is the best memory I could have throughout Stormblood AND in Shadowbringers to come!

I couldn’t have said it better myself! Here are some more war stories!

Rhoamer Korbyn
Highlights eh?
Comedy: Doing a blind run of The Burn and being the last alive (as BRD). Breeches suddenly dyed brown but managed to get that Mist Dragon down (still had LB3 :P)
Tragedy: Wiping on 1000 Memes of Toto last boss because the DRK can’t hold emnity.
Farce: DRK was level 68….

Louisoix Belanger
Reaching enrage on Neo Exdeath when the lagpocalypse was upon us, followed shortly by getting my first clear of Chaos Savage with y’all

Validus Sol
Definitely clearing my first Savage raid!

You guys definitely earned those kills. It’s a real blessing to be able to see so many people progress in skill and in passion for this game and the people in it. Oh, I think Validus has another top memory to share:

Joining this fc after being in a terrible one that almost killed my experience in this game, and then seeing it in a whole new light and learning Savage content with you people <3 and also getting to know everyone and making it more of a family than an fc :3

Aww~! I definitely didn’t pay him to say that.

Here’s a story about making your own fun in the game:

Genesis Nebul
there was the time H’unter and I stayed up all night sightseeing ingame architecture and comparing and contrasting it. I also savor the time H’unter and I won the FC Valentine’s day couple glam contest, challenges yin yang; we entered with Kingdomhearts inspired glams, him as a Whm foreseer, and me as a BLM org13 or perhaps traitorous master; KH3 had recently come out so it went over really well! Then there was just last week when Nimoa Bahjeera (Blm), Gerard Montblanc (Dragoon), and I went into Ala Migho and our whm couldn’t stay alive. I was a Pld healing and tanking the boss fights…. I’m a summoner main. I honestly didn’t even know I knew PLD well enough to basically carry a party without a healer x.x
I also won’t forget the very first time I parsed out of grey on Savage content; it was on Choas.

Storyline? Alisaie pouring her heart out to me. I didn’t finish the binding coils of bahamut prior to the story with her so this was the first time I really had her character open up to mine and share much. I cried. I really feel for her and relate to her passion and protectiveness of those she loves.

I love how Genesis finds so much joy in things that aren’t even strictly “content” driven. Who takes the time to look at architecture? Maybe I should…

I guess I should probably add my favorite memory too! There’s so much to choose from when you work with and encounter so many amazing and talented people. In terms of Free Company accomplishment, my favorite moment was taking (almost) a whole FC Alliance into the Orbonne Monastery. That is the most people who have ever participated in a FC event at once and it really demonstrated how much we were growing and how many of our members had reached late-game level-cap content as a result of their hard work.

And for a personal accomplishment: Clearing the Alphascape Savage raid, and especially with the same people I started the raid with. I had never been in a group of people who stuck it out together through so much and for so long.

Thank you, Stabbies, for sharing your stories with us. I can’t wait to see what Shadowbringers has in store for us. I don’t know about you but I’m ready to THROW WIDE THE GATES.

Until next time!

A Farewell to Arms: Stormblood in Review

Hello there, Stabbies.

Headmistress Kela here to thank you for the wonderful expansion and to remind everyone of what we’ve accomplished in the time that’s passed.

When Stormblood launched two years ago, we had a Free Company of roughly 100 people, maximum number of people online at any time was only 24. We had a medium house in the Goblet, had just launched the website, and had a club meeting schedule that included only Palace of the Dead and Maps, with the occasional synced Bahamut group. We had one player who had serious savage experience: me.

We upgraded our house to a large when Shirogane was added, and we have since added several nearby houses belonging to individual members.

Our website is still here, but the discord is super active with hundreds of members and dozens online at a time. Calendar has included all manner of events, such as savage raid, learning raid, alliance raid, ex primals, maps, deep dungeon, pvp, crafting, triple triad, role-playing and more.

We now have over 200 members with 40-50 unique users logging in daily.

Our savage team for this tier has represented us to Brynhildr fantastically:
HERE is the ranking summary for all our members.
In particular, (By All-Star points for the whole tier):
#1 in Static Speed on Brynhildr
#2 in Static Execution on Brynhildr
#5 in Static Speed for Crystal Data Center
#5 in Static Execution for Crystal Data Center
#1 in Combined Healer Damage on Brynhildr (Kekela Kela & H’unter Tia)
#3 in Combined Healer Damage for Crystal Data Center (Kekela Kela & H’unter Tia)
#1 Astrologian Damage on Brynhildr (H’unter Tia)
#1 Bard Damage on Brynhildr (Maximillion Lionheart)
#3 Bard Damage on Brynhildr (Mana Akagane)
#1 Dark Knight Damage on Brynhildr (Sukutak Amasawa)
#10 Dragoon Damage on Brynhildr (M’laiboli Fhey – thank you for raiding with us as much as you were able!)
#2 Ninja Damage on Brynhildr (C’rhys Tia)
#3 Paladin Damage on Brynhildr (Ricola Tesla)
#1 Scholar Damage on Brynhildr (Kekela Kela)
#1 Summoner Damage on Brynhildr (Mika Tesla)
#3 White Mage Damage on Brynhildr (C’rhys Tia)
#1 Healer on Brynhildr (Kekela Kela)
#2 Scholar Damage on Crystal Data Center (Kekela Kela)

Honestly what I’m most proud of about raiding this tier is how many people we were able to teach Chaos and even a handful that learned Midgardsormr, and how their player skill was impacted by their exposure to higher-difficulty content and their willingness to try something new! Congratulations: Genesis Nebul, Louisoix Belanger, Ponyo Amasawa, Kekechuri Hohochuri, Korodi Nikodi, Kaido Nihil, Nadezhda Kris, Solidus Obscura, F’yo Tia, Cherry Flyaway, Udal Stark.

In addition, at the start of the expansion we had no ability to put together an all-FC team, not only do we have one, but in 5.05 we will have TWO. Please look forward to it!

We have multiple submersibles and airships with optimal upgrades and have unlocked all sectors of exploration, as well as purchased the rights to build all housing skins. We have multiple endgame crafters and gatherers that work tirelessly to ensure everyone has access to housing items, glamour gear, raiding gear, food, potions, bardings and other achievement items. They have also provided us with spun buffs for added bonuses and benefit.

WE HOPE TO CONTINUE OUR WORK AND TO EXPAND EVEN MORE IN SHADOWBRINGERS

In the coming days please look forward to: Savage Static Roster Announcement, Calendar Announcements, Leadership Draft, and the schedule for our first EVER All-Crystal Raiding Symposium for helping new raiders break into the scene.

Thank you to our Stabbies for all of our contributions and hard work – none of this is possible without your dedication and cooperation. You earned every one of these accolades. We love you all! Become what you must!

Headmistress Kela
The Leadership Team
All of us at the Nymian Royal Academy
xivacademy.com